International Journal of Open Educational Resources
Contrasting the use of OER in instruction , the incorporation of OER in instruction told a different story . There is a considerable percentage of respondents who choose not to incorporate OER into instruction at all . Among the users , faculty members lead the charge by incorporating OER into instruction ( Fig . 5 ). For faculty , the high use of OER materials is primarily for supplemental readings and class assignments , which is higher than the OER materials used by graduate students and postdocs for class assignments and supplement reading . Faculty and students also use
OER for course reserves and course textbooks .
We also asked about any potential barriers to not using OER , specifically in the curriculum ( Fig . 6 ). The lack of time to review OER content and the unfamiliarity of the subject content that is found in OER materials were two significant barriers for the faculty . All barriers mentioned were personal / professional . We were surprised to learn that no faculty mentioned the departmental approval as an obstacle , which proves that awareness about OER can promote its use without administrative hindrance .
Fig . 6 . Barriers for OER use in the curriculum
Also explored in the survey was how faculty and graduate students / post-docs use OER in various colleges in their research . Although most of the respondents identified in CLAS , they also represent the demographic that uses OER most frequently for research .
Not surprisingly , OA articles rank the highest , with some modules ranking the lowest ( Fig . 7 & Fig . 8 ). This was not surprising as it confirms again that the faculty and students use open access articles for teaching and research ( Fig . 4 ).
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